self taught artist

Tod and I have been enjoying the two shelves I made in December out of those hay warmer parts I got from a soon to be demolished barn. I've been meaning to take pictures and post them, I know everyone has been waiting with baited breath as to what I was going to do with them.

They are fairly simple, chest high and fit perfectly in corners. I have a handful of these and hope to make some for general consumption one day. It is a matter of finding more thick wood (i dont buy wood it has to come from a dumpster or some other free/found place) and getting a sliding compound miter saw. I can wait....its winter for gods sake.

I covet these cow water basins. I have one more left, its nearly all lunar blue and I'm probably going to just hold onto it awhile before making it into a Bauble Clock. I have this craving for more and am clueless how, where, if, when I will procure more.

The Vermont Bauble Clock is an open ended edition of clocks that I make using found objects from around the area. This clock is another re-do, I originally kept this clock plain, added nothing but painted hands, thinking that this cow's water basin was cool enough in and of itself. I can see I was wrong. It needed balance and baubles.

A found heating element sits in the slot below and of course my trademark found washers and rubber to accentuate the time connect two main objects as a whole. To date I only have three of these old water basins. Last time I went to a farm I saw one and was informed of how they worked, apparently a lever of sorts (almost like a how a hamster gets water in their cages) is used and the cow would press it with its nose and the water would come out. The other side of the basin is bowl like and beautifully aged but I like this shown side much better. There are dark and light blues, natural cream and red all mixed together.

Having never gone to art school or studied art much on my own, I am usually naively surprised when I find an artist who does work that reminds me of so and so who is now living. I can see the influence Alexander Calder has had on many of today's artists. Lots to read if you are so inclined (which I wasn't) and lots of fantastic photographs of his work, including watercolor and ink. This guy was a mad genius with wire and if you have children you owe it to them to show them.




Save for the last two chapters, this was a 'can't put it down' book to read. Oddly, the studio visit and Biennale chapters were unreadable for reasons I can't explain other than it was just not interesting to me.

I can however, venture to say that you have never read a book about the art world quite like this one. Sarah Thornton is a tremendous writer who studies people and takes obvious pleasure in writing about them. She slips into the art world like a 007 and finds out the information …